Premier League Darts 2026 Play-Offs Preview

After 16 gruelling weeks, the Premier League Darts roadshow reaches its conclusion with the end of season play-offs at The O2 on Thursday night (May 28). Luke Littler, Jonny Clayton, Luke Humphries and Gerwyn Price battle it out for the richest prize in non-ranking event darts, with £275,000 up for grabs for the winner on finals night.

The 2026 Premier League has had many twists and turns, with Littler and Clayton jostling for top spot in the table, while a late surge from the 2025 champion Humphries saw him make the end of season play-offs and take his title defence into the final night of the season.

Ahead of the play-offs in London this week, we take a closer look at all four title contenders, including their season highlights and lowlights, and their chances of lifting Premier League silverware at The O2…

Premier League 2026 Stats
League position: 1st | Match win-loss record: 24-10 | Nightly titles: Six
Tournament average: 99.93 | 180s: 121 | Checkout percentage: 41.5%

Season overview: A quick glance at the league table and it would appear it has been business as usual for Luke Littler in this year’s Premier League. ‘The Nuke’ topped the final standings after 16 weeks for the third year in a row, extending his perfect record of finishing in the #1 spot every season he has competed in the Premier League. The 19-year-old equalled his record of nightly wins in a season, racking up six titles in Cardiff, Dublin, Berlin, Liverpool, Aberdeen and Leeds to end the campaign nine points clear at the summit.

However, the reigning PDC world champion did not have things all his own way, spending the first four weeks of the season outside the play-off spots, and he did not climb up into top spot until week eight. A run of three nightly wins in succession from weeks 12-14 saw Littler pull away from fellow front runner Jonny Clayton and ensure he returns to The O2 once again as the number one seed and the player to beat.

Highlight of the season: Luke Littler’s hat-trick of consecutive nightly titles in Liverpool, Aberdeen and Leeds helped the world number one to pull away from Jonny Clayton and clinch top spot in the Premier League table. The trio of titles included three wins over the world number two Luke Humphries in successive weeks, including in back-to-back finals in Aberdeen and Leeds, and also featured a pair of victories over Clayton, one of which was in the Liverpool final on night 12. The world number one then wrapped up top spot in week 15 with a 6-0 triumph against Clayton, stretching his winning streak in the Premier League at the time to 10 matches.

Lowlight of the season: Luke Littler tasted back-to-back quarter-final defeats for the first time in his Premier League career, after losing his opening match of the night in weeks 9 and 10 in Manchester and Brighton. Much was made of the dramatic 6-5 loss at the hands of Gian van Veen in Manchester, an encounter which ended amidst some controversy, as ‘The Nuke’ appeared to celebrate his opponent missing a match dart. Littler professed his innocence afterwards, but it did not stop him walking out to a chorus of boos the following week in Brighton. The reception clearly affected the teenager, who posted his lowest ever average on television – 83.94 – in a 6-4 reverse to Stephen Bunting.

Title chances: Luke Littler is the 10/11 favourite to regain the Premier League crown. ‘The Nuke’ won the title on debut back in 2024, throwing a nine-dart leg during his final victory over Luke Humphries to capture his first PDC major. Humphries avenged that defeat when the two players met in the 2025 final at The O2, but since then it has been Littler who has continued to dominate the sport, winning an astonishing seven major titles in the last 12 months. Littler is the outright world number one and has half an eye on an historic clean sweep, having won the last five majors in a row, regaining the Premier League would take him a step closer to holding all of the 10 PDC majors at the same time.

Premier League Stats
League position: 2nd | Match win-loss record: 20-12 | Nightly titles: Four
Tournament average: 97.58 | 180s: 88 | Checkout percentage: 45.6%

Season overview: Jonny Clayton has been one of the standout stories in this year’s Premier League. ‘The Ferret’, at 51 years old, was the oldest player to be picked for darts’ biggest roadshow after not being selected for at least one season, eclipsing the record previously held by Ronnie Baxter, who was 49 years old when he returned to the line up in 2010. Clayton’s first Premier League run saw him win the title in 2021 and then reach the play-offs again in 2022 and 2023, but after a three-year absence from the field could he make the top four again?

The Welshman quickly answered those questions in the very first match of the tournament, posting an eye-catching 109.81 average in beating Premier League newcomer Josh Rock 6-2, proving that he was not coming back just to make up the numbers. Clayton enjoyed two lengthy runs at the top of the table, from weeks 3-7 and weeks 10-12, helped by winning a quartet of nightly titles. The 2022 table topper’s bid to finish the season as #1 fell short in the end though, with a trio of defeats to Luke Littler in the last five weeks paving the way for ‘The Nuke’, 32 years Clayton’s junior, to overtake him at the summit.

Highlight of the season: Jonny Clayton matched his personal best of four nightly titles in a Premier League season, matching his haul from 2022 with triumphs in Glasgow, Nottingham, Brighton and Rotterdam. The latter two of those victories came in back-to-back weeks midway through the season and saw ‘The Ferret’ open up a five-point lead over Luke Littler at the top of the table. In fact, Clayton defeated Littler 6-4 in the Rotterdam final, which at the time felt like an important moment in the season and in the race to finish as the #1. Although Clayton’s top-spot bid faltered in the end, those consecutive titles meant he could play the remaining five weeks knowing that whatever happens he would be going to The O2 for finals night.

Lowlight of the season: There have been 20 whitewashes in the history of the Premier League, with this year’s edition featuring a record four matches where a player has finished with zero legs to their name. Jonny Clayton became just the second player to suffer more than one whitewash defeat in a single Premier League campaign, tasting 6-0 defeats to Stephen Bunting and Luke Littler. The second of those unwanted results came on the penultimate week of the regular season in Birmingham, and ended Clayton’s hopes of finishing top of the table.

Title chances: Despite finishing second in the final standings, Jonny Clayton is the 9/1 outsider to lift the Premier League title for a second time. ‘The Ferret’ claimed Premier League glory back in 2021, during the pandemic era of darts when only the last handful of nights were played with a small crowd in Milton Keynes. A victory at The O2 would surely be Clayton’s biggest win of his career so far, and he may have to beat the world number two (Luke Humphries) and world number one (Luke Littler) on the same night to do it. It’s a big ask, but if there’s one thing we’ve learnt during this Premier League season, it’s that you can never write off a ferret!

Premier League Stats
League position: 3rd | Match win-loss record: 16-15 | Nightly titles: One
Tournament average: 101.20 | 180s: 98 | Checkout percentage: 33.7%

Season overview: It has been a strange old Premier League season for Luke Humphries. In 2025, ‘Cool Hand’ spent the entire campaign in the top two and went on to win his first Premier League title, beating his arch rival Luke Littler in the final. But the title defence in 2026 has not been smooth sailing for the world number two, who spent the majority of the season outside of the play-off spots. After week 10 in Brighton, Humphries found himself down in seventh place in the table, having suffered a third quarter-final exit in a row, and in real danger of missing out on finals night for the first time in his Premier League career.

Only two defending Premier League champions have ever missed out on qualifying for the play-offs the following season, Michael van Gerwen in 2020 and Glen Durrant in 2021. However, ‘Cool Hand’ made sure his name would not be added to that list this year, with a late push in the final weeks, which included a run of four consecutive finals from weeks 13-16, helping the 2023/24 PDC world champion jump from sixth to third in the table.

Highlight of the season: Since the introduction of the nightly tournaments to the Premier League in 2022, no player has reached the play-offs without winning multiple nightly titles in a season. That was until Luke Humphries this year. ‘Cool Hand’ picked up just the one five-point haul during the 2026 campaign, with his solitary night win coming in the penultimate week of the regular league phase in Birmingham. The 2025 Premier League champion had lost in back-to-back finals the previous two weeks to boost his play-off hopes, and his title win in week 15 saw him post 107, 110 and 100 averages in succession to seal his place at The O2 in style.

Lowlight of the season: A 6-5 defeat in the opening game of week 10 in Brighton saw Luke Humphries lose in the quarter-finals of a Premier League night for the third week in a row, and saw the defending champion slip to second from bottom in the table. At that point, the play-off hopes for ‘Cool Hand’ were fading away, having gone pointless in five of the first 10 nights of the season and with a win-loss record of 6-10 with only six weeks left to go. Humphries then went 10-5 in matches during the run-in to finish inside the top four and with a nine-point buffer, which would have been unthinkable following that run of early exits just six weeks earlier.

Title chances: Luke Humphries heads to The O2 for a third consecutive year and this time as the 9/4 second favourite to retain the Premier League trophy he won 12 months ago. In the 21-year history of the Premier League, only two players have successfully retained the title, Phil Taylor and Michael van Gerwen. Another victory in the English capital for ‘Cool Hand’ would not only be a first major triumph since winning the Premier League last year, but would be another step towards cementing his legacy as one of the all-time greats in the sport.

Premier League Stats
League position: 4th | Match win-loss record: 15-14 | Nightly titles: Two
Tournament average: 98.51| 180s: 82 | Checkout percentage: 43.2%

Season overview: Gerwyn Price has spent almost the entire season inside the play-off spots in the Premier League, with ‘The Iceman’ racking up 19 points by week nine which included two nightly titles in Antwerp and Manchester. Much of the heavy lifting was done in the first half of the campaign for the 2023 Premier League runner-up, who went on a win-loss run of 4-7 in the final seven weeks of the season.

Hardly form that will frighten Price’s play-off rivals, and there are concerns over the former world champion’s form with a flurry of late withdrawals from tournaments in recent weeks. Price has already elected not to represent Wales in next month’s PDC World Cup of Darts, while the last seven days has seen him pull out of a European Tour event at the last minute and yesterday his much anticipated appearance in the UK Open Pool Championship was cancelled at short notice.

Highlight of the season: Gerwyn Price was at his brilliant best winning the second of his two nightly titles in Manchester. It will be hard to top the brace of nine-dart legs ‘The Iceman’ hit during a Premier League night in Belfast back in 2022, but his trio of performances to take the full five points in Manchester in this year’s Premier League will be right up there. Averages of 104, 112 and 105 helped Price to a hat-trick of 6-2 wins over Luke Humphries, Stephen Bunting and Gian van Veen and rise up to second in the table.

Lowlight of the season: A run of three straight quarter-final defeats from weeks 10-12 all but ended Gerwyn Price’s hopes of challenging for top spot. The Welshman was unbeatable during his week nine triumph in Manchester, which saw him close the gap on the table-topping Luke Littler to just two points. However, just three weeks later Price found himself trailing ‘The Nuke’ by 13 points and now looking over his shoulder instead of challenging for top spot.

Title chances: Gerwyn Price is a 5/1 shot to add the Premier League trophy to his CV this week. It has been a long time between drinks for the former world number one, whose last major title is coming up for four years ago at the 2022 World Series of Darts Finals. Price’s last major final appearance was at the 2023 World Grand Prix, and back then Luke Humphries had zero major titles to his name and Luke Littler was 15 years old and was not old enough to play in PDC competitions! Price will have to do it the hard way if he is to end that major drought this week, with Littler his semi-final opponent and possibly Humphries then waiting for him in the final.

It’s hard to look past it being another Luke Littler vs Luke Humphries final at The O2. The pair have met in the Premier League decider in each of their previous two appearances in the tournament, with Littler winning 11-7 in the 2024 final and then Humphries triumphing 11-8 when they met in last year’s finale.

I see it being another battle of the two Lukes in the final here, with Littler beating Gerwyn Price 10-8 and Humphries squeezing past Jonny Clayton 10-9 in the semi-finals.

I hope we get a close final, like the one we had at the World Masters in Milton Keynes at the start of the year that went all the way to a final set shootout. It’s going to take something special from either player to win and, based on the last six months, when it comes to the big moments in finals it has been ‘The Nuke’ who has produced them more often than anyone else. I think the major-winning streak continues for the world number one and Littler beats Humphries 11-9 to get his hands back on the Premier League trophy.

Pictures: PDC